N.B., N.S. student leaders look to build lifelong skills

The lesson plan looked a little different on Tuesday as nearly 200 students from across New Brunswick and Amherst, N.S. gathered for a Horizons Leadership Conference at Tantramar Regional High School.

“I really want people to be inspired to make their school a safer and more positive sense,” explained Grade 12 student Jesse Alder.

The entire event was made possible by Alder herself.

Alder went to the same conference last year at a different high school and knew right away that it was something she wanted to offer in her own backyard.

“You learn so much from each other and to be supported by leaders from other communities shows you that you’re not the only ones out there and you learn new things and just become better overall,” she said.

“First of all we learn amazing things from the speakers who really develop us into much better leaders, they teach us super important things. I think the most valuable part is when we have time conferencing with other leaders about what they’re doing at their schools, how they’re building school spirit, how they’re making their schools safe.”

Ditching the textbooks and the classroom, students from Grade 8 up to Grade 12 spent the day listening to motivational speakers, participating in different group activities with students from different schools and having a bit of friendly competition with trivia and prizes.

The entire event aimed to inspire, motive and bring up-and-coming leaders together.

“Kids today don’t want to just raise money for the food bank,” said Dave Comlon with the Canadian Student Leadership Association. “Food banks are a great thing but they want to go there and they want to work in the food bank, they want to hand out food downtown to the homeless. They don’t want to be passive they want to be active participants in making change happen.”

He says the goal is to give students the information and resources they need to make their schools and communities a better place, including different $500 grants that students can apply for.

“We have 40 horizons this year across the country and we’ve had more than 40 schools get that award,” he said. “The kids make things happen. They have the motivation. We’re just giving them the information.”

In the past he’s seen students do something as small as putting a bench outside of the school for people to sit on and other schools who have applied get a student-painted mural on the school walls.

Mya O’Neil-Johston and Gavin Chiasson Butland say their school has a really small population and coming together with leaders from around New Brunswick is a great opportunity.

“You have to take the opportunity when you have it because you never know when it can pass you and it’s really important, even though you may not get it yourself, but the things you do now can help the generation behind you,” said O’Neil-Jonston.

In total, their school only had four representatives, but Chiasson Butland says he hopes they serve as inspiration.

“We try to make sure that every student feels like they can stand up like we’re doing today and walk to the front and participate and be a part of the community,” he said. “You don’t know what other people are going through. Just because I’m in a leadership position doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing. Usually I don’t know what I’m doing, but you’ve just got to kind of fake it until you make it and when everyone does that things keep moving.”

Ethan Leal is in Grade 11 and his school hosted the conference last year so he got to experience it in a different light on Tuesday.

“The people that are here all want to like help people grow and that’s, for me, kind of interesting and to hear from people who actually want that is important,” he said. “I feel like if we have a good amount of people at every school doing this it helps make the schools better.”

Several students also noted developing leadership skills would benefit them long after graduation.

Schools in attendance included:

• Tantramar Regional High School
• Moncton High School
• Harrison Trimble High School
• Dorchester Consolidated School
• Bernice MacNaughton High School
• Amherst Regional High School
• Caledonia Regional High School
• Marshview Middle School

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